


lEaster Unterpveteb. 



Easter IFuterpteteb, 



Citations from 



/ 

IRobert Brownino* 



Cbosen aub Brraucjet) 

IRoee porter* 



: : ^Fleming 1b. IRcvell Co. : : 

New York : Chicago :• 

12 bible house, astor place. 143 and 150 madison street. 

jpubliabcra of JErangcIical Xiteraturc. 



Copyright, 1891, 

FLEMING H. REVEI<I* COMPANli'. 




prefatory* 

ESPITE Robert Browning's 
sympathy with the all-embrac- 
ing research, exhaustive analy- 
sis and unsparing criticism 
which distinguishes the age, 
when he speaks of God and immortality 
his words are clear and pronounced as 
the notes of a well-tuned bell, while his 
anticipations of a blessed hereafter ring out 
in cadence ** most musical, most sweet." 
The following citations,which are culled from 
a number of poems, accentuate this. They 
emphasize, also, the harmony of sentiment 
and unity of thought, which so environed 
Browning's hopes of life after death ; and 



because of this under-tone harmony, they 
read as one mighty, on-flowing poem, rather 
than as extracts from various verses. 

But enough, Browning is his own inter- 
preter, and our part is to listen with reverence 
while he sings of " the known to the un- 
known," of "Heaven's shall beyirom. earth's 
has been," 




lEaeter Unterpreteb, 

Citations from IRobert :S5rowning. 
IRest IRemainetb. 




•ASTER-DAY breaks! 

Christ rises ! Mercy every 

way is infinite — 
Earth breaks up ; time drops 
away ; 

In flows Heaven, with its new day 
Of endless life — 

What is left for us, save, in growth 
Of soul' to rise up, . . . 
From the gift looking to the giver, 
And from the cistern to the river. 
And from the finite to infinity, 
And from man's dust to God's divinity." 



10 lEaster *[rntcrpretc& 

H Sours Martarc. 

"Remember what a martyr said: 
I was born sickly, poor and mean, 
A slave . . . 

I was some time in being burned, 
But at the close a Hand came through 
The fire above my head, and drew 
My soul to Christ, whom now I see. 
So, the All-Great, was the All-Loving too." 

Spiritual IFnslabt. 

''There's Heaven above, and night by night 
I look right through its gorgeous roof; 
No suns and moons though e'er so bright 
Avail to stop me . . . 
For I intend to get to God, 
For 'tis to God I speed so fast, 
For in God's breast, my own abode, 
I lay my spirit down at last." 



bg IRobcrt Browning, 11 

' Then comes a Voice, saying, 
O heart I made . . . 
Love I gave thee . . 
And thou must love Me who hath died for 
thee !" 



TLbc Sours Orowtb, 

"When the fight begins within himself, 
A man's worth something . . . 
Prolong that battle through his life ! 
Never leave growing till the life to come ! 
Next life relieves the soul of body, yields 
Pure spiritual enjoyment; well, my friend, 
Why lose this life o* the meantime, since tfs 

use 
Maybe to make the next life more intense?" 

" I say that man was made to grow, not stop. 
Man should mount on each 
New height in view "... 



12 )6a0tcr IFnterpreteD 

"Stung by straitness of our life, made strait 
On purpose to make prized the life at large — 
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call 

death. 
We burst There as the worm into the fly, 
Who while a worm still wants his wings." 



IRotblng Xo6t. 

"To whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable 
Name ? 

Builder and maker. Thou, of houses not 
made with hands ! 

What, have fear of change from Thee who 
art ever the same ? 

Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart 
that Thy power expands ? 

There shall never be one lost good ! What 
was, shall live as before; 

The evil is null, is nought, is silence im- 
plying sound ; 



bg IRobcit Browning. 13 

What was good shall be good, with, for evil, 

so much good more, 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven 

a perfect round. 

All we have willed, or hoped, or dreamed of 

good, shall exist ; 
Not its semblance, but itself, no beauty, nor 

good, nor power, 

Whose voice has gone forth, but each sur- 
vives for the melodist, 

When eternity affirms the conception of an 
hour. 

The high that proved too high, the heroic 
for earth too hard. 

The passion that left the ground to lose it- 
self in the sky, 

Are music sent up to God by the lover and 
the bard ; 

Enough that He heard it once ; we shall 
hear it by-and-by." 



14 3£a0ter IFntcrprctcO 

■ffn (3oD'5 1banD» 

"Ay, note the Potter's wheel, 

That metaphor . . . 

. . . Perfect the cup is planned ! 

Let age approve of youth, and death com- 
plete the same ;" 

" Deep within my heart of hearts. 
Ever the confidence amends for all 
That Heaven — in that new world where 

light and darkness fuse, — 
Repairs what wrong earth's journey did." 



Bttcr Bartb— Ibeaven. 

**0 thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee 

again. 
And with God be the rest." 



bs IRobert IBrownfng. 15 

**He was made aware how dear is death, 
How lova'ble the dead are, how the heart 
Yearns in us to hide where they repose." 



''Heaven's beyond earth," and 

'*! suppose Heaven is, through Eternity, 

The equalizing, ever and anon, 

Li momentary rapture, great and small, 

Omniscience with intelligency, God with 
man ... 

. . . There's the Heaven for me. 
And I say, therefore, to live out one's life 
r the world here, with chance — whether by 

pain 

Or pleasure be the process, long or short 
The time, august or mean the circumstances 
To human eye — of learning how set foot, 
Decidedly on some one path to Heaven, 
This makes it worth our while to tenderly 



16 JBaster ITnterprcteD 

Handle a state of things which mend we 

might ; 
Mar we may, but which meanwhile helps 

so far." 

And yet, 
'*A mortal glance might pierce, methinks, 
Deeper into the heart of things, 
And learn, no fruit man's life can bear will 

fade." 
•' Death reads the title clear — 
What each soul for itself conquered from 
out things here " 
"And God will estimate success one day." 
"Oh, how all the more will love become in- 
tense 
"Hereafter, when, * to love* means yearning 
to dispense 
Each soul, its own amount of gain through 

its own mode 
Of practicing with life . . ♦ 



b^ IRobert iBrowntng. 1? 

Why doubt a time succeeds 

When each one may impart, and each re- 
ceive?" 

** Remember the individual soul works 
through the show of sense 

Up to an outer soul as individual, too ; 
And, through the fleeting, lives to die into 
the fixed 

And reach at length God, man, or both, to- 
gether mixed." 

'Is it for nothing we grow old and weak, 
We whom God loyes? When pain ends, gain 

ends too, 
For love, with all it yields of joy and woe 
And hope and fear . . . 

Is just our cha^nce o' the prize of learning 
love, 

How love might be, hath been indeed,and is; 

And that we hold thenceforth, to the utter- 
most 



18 yBaetcv fFnterprctcb 

Such pf ize despite the envy of the world. 
And having gained truth, keep truth; that 
is all. 

But we see the double way wherein we are 
led, 

How the soul learns diversely from the 
flesh ! 

With flesh, that hath so little time to stay! 

Then as new lessons shall be learned in 

these 
Till earth's work stops and useless time runs 

out 

The love that tops — the Christ in God." 

Soul— jflfQbt 

"Dying, we Live ! 
Soul that canst soar ! 
Body may slumber; 
Body shall cumber 
Soul — flij^ht no more.'* 



bg IRobert Browning* 19 

''Henceforth, no certainty more plain 

Than that after body dies, soul lives again. 

, . . God is, and the soul is, and, as 
certain after death shall be 

The time for using fact ! 

Life to come will be improvement on the 
life that's now . . . 

O'er this life the next presents advantages 
much and manifold. 

I afilirm and reafilirm it, therefore, 

As that man now lives, that after dying 
man will live again. 

What though, as on earth he darkling 
grovels, man descry the sphere 

Next life's — call it, Heaven of freedom 
. , . Close above and crystal-clear ! 

Henceforth, man's existence bows to the 
monition — Wait ! 

Take the joys and bear the sorrows — ■ 
neither with extreme concern ; 



30 jEastcr UnterpvcteD 

Living here means nescience simply ; 'tis 
next life that helps to learn. 

Shut those eyes, next life will open ; 
Stop those ears, next life will teach 
Hearings office ; close those lips, next life 
will give the power of speech. 

. . . Soon shall things be unperplexed 
And the right and wrong now tangled lie 
unraveled in the next." 

"Certainly as God exists. 
As He made man's soul, as soul is quench- 
less by the deathly mists 

Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature 
escape from time 

To eternity's provided purer air and 
brighter clime. 

Just so certainly depends it on the use to 

which man turns 
Earth, the good or evil done there, whether 

after death he earns 



be IRobert Browning. 21 

Life eternal — Heaven — the phrase be, or 
eternal death — say Hell. 

As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill 
or doing well ! " 



TLbc iPuture. 

**The Future— that's 

Our destination, mists turn rainbows 
T/iere." 

"Death touches the eyes 

And shows God granted most, denying all! " 
"Tis willed so — that man's life be lived first 
to last. 

Up and down, through and through, not in 
portions, forsooth, 

To pick and to choose from, our shuttles 
fly fast, 

Weave living, not life sole and whole ; as 
age, youth, 



22 JEaster 1[nterprete& 



So death completes living, shows life in its 
truth. 

Earth its race-ground, Heaven its goal.'* 



\ "After earth comes peace 
^ Born out of life-long battle." 



ffrom IbciQbt to Ibcl^bt. 

" What were life 

Did soul stand still therein, forego her strife 

Through the ambiguous Present to the goal 

Of some all-reconciling Future ? 

Soul — nothing has been which shall not 
bettered be 

Hereafter — leave the root, by law's decree 

Whence springs the ultimate and perfect 
tree ! 

Busy thee with unearthing root? Nay, 
climb — 



bs IRobcrt JSt owning. 23 

Quit trunk, branch, leaf and flower— reach 
rest sublime. 

Where fruitage ripens in the blaze of day, 

Be assured, come what come will, 

What once lives never dies — what here 
attains 

To a beginning has no end, still gains 

And never loses aught; when, where, how — 

Lies in law's lap." 

(BoD %ove0. 

God loves us and all that errs, 

Is a strange dream which death will dis- 
sipate. 

Be sure that God 

Ne'er dooms to waste the strength He 
deigns impart ! 

Be sure they sleep not whom God needs." 

I go to prove my soul ! 

I 3ee my way as birds their trackless way. 



24 lEaster ITnterprcteD 



\ I shall arrive ! what time, what circuit first, 

, i 

! I I ask not . . . but . . . 

V In some time, His good time, I shall arrive; 

' He guides me and the bird." 



"True, I am worn ; 

But who clothes summer, who is life itself? 

God, that created all things, can renew ! 

And then, though after-life to please me 
now 

Must have no likeness to the past, what 
hinders 

Reward from springing out of toil, as 
changed 

As bursts the flower from earth and root 
and stalk ! " 

"Meanwhile, things learned on earth 
We shall practice in Heaven. 
Only the scales to be changed, that's all." 



bi5 IRobert Browning. 25 

**And when a soul has seen 

By the means of Evil that Good is best, 

And through earth and its noise, what is 
Heaven's serene — 

When our faith in the same has stood the 
test — 

Why, the child, grown man, you burn the 
rod, 

The uses of labor are surely done ; 

There remaineth a rest for the people of 
God." 

*'I believe it ! 'Tis Thou, God, that giveth, 
'tis 1 who receive ; 

In the first is the last, in Thy will is my 
power to believe 

. . . Salvation joins issue with death ! 

As Thy Love is discovered almighty, al- 
mighty be proved 

Thy power, that exists with and for it, of 
being Beloved ! 



26 j£a6tcr IFntcrpreteD 

He who did most shall bear most ; the 

strongest shall stand the most weak. 
Tis the weakness in strength I cry for ! my 

flesh, that I seek 
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it — it 

shall be 
A Face like my face that recieves thee ; 
A Man like to me 

Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever ; 
A Hand like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to 

thee ! 
See — the Christ stands ! *' 



Hll Ubings IRew, 

"Think when our one soul understands 
The great Word which shall make all things 

new, 
When earth breaks up and therein expands, 
How will the change strike me and you 



bg IRobcrt drowning. 27 



In the house not made with hands ? 
Surely the gain of earth must be Heaven's 
gain too." 



H IRcverent pause. 

"Oh, never star 
Was lost here but it rose afar ! 

We all aspire to Heaven, and there is 

Heaven 
Above us ; go then ! Dare we go ? No 

surely ! 
How dare we go without a reverent pause, 
A growing less unfit for Heaven ? 
Now, raise thee, clay ! 
God ! Thou art Love ! I build my faith in 

that ! 
If I stoop 

Into a dark, tremendous sea of cloud 
It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp 



28 lEaetcr IFnterpretcD. 

Close to my heart ; its splendors, soon or 

late, 
Will pierce the gloom, I shall emerge one 

day. 
You understand me? I have said enough !" 



]£a9ter*S)a^ breal^s! 

Cbrist rises! 

/IDerc^ ever^ wa^ is Untinite! 




iSSr.. ^^ CONGRESS 



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W^ui 





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